Monday, September 23, 2013

NSA spying and the threat of terrorism/spying/cyber war etc etc

Ever since
the former NSA employee Edward
Snowden revealed the extent of NSA’s and GCHQ’s internet spying there has
been a backlash against the secretive and obviously unlawful operations of NSA
and its allies.

On the one
hand people have complained about the indiscriminate interception of the entire
world’s internet and phone traffic, while the other (much less numerous) side, made
up of people associated with the NSA and the US intelligence community, has
tried to make the argument that even if certain laws were broken it was all in
the interest of ‘national security’.

According to
their side people should just shut up and deal with the complex realities of
cyber warfare, internet spying and all that jazz. Oh and of course we shouldn’t
listen to Snowden cause he’s just a Chinese/Russian spy and has psychological
problems and and and.

That strategy
was more or less effective at the start of this story and I remember that many (independent?)
media started focusing on Snowden and not on the Orwellian policies of the NSA.

It is a
testament to the professionalism of Snowden’s collaborator Glenn Greenwald that important material is
released in a steady basis, so the media aren’t overwhelmed by the information.
This means that critics have to focus on the NSA activities and cannot
sidetrack the discussion with accusations about Snowden’s motives or his
personal life.

This strategy
of the Snowden team has left the ‘defenders of the realm’ holding their dick in
their hands (as we say in Greece)…

Now the
question of surveillance/spying and the limits that have to be imposed is a
difficult issue. The defenders of the NSA can claim that they need to intercept
everything, subvert codes and break computer software because that will help
them arrest spies, terrorists and other bad guys.

Looking back
through history it is interesting to compare their efforts with the activities
of the British intelligence agencies during WWII.

The Brits had
to deal with foreign states like Germany, Japan, Italy and the Soviet Union
that had extensive espionage networks throughout the world and were often
supported by other ‘neutral’ countries.

Although in
1939-40 British intelligence was woefully inadequate during the war their
performance picked up and they were able to dismantle enemy networks and build
up their presence in ‘neutral’ countries like Spain, Turkey, Sweden and
Switzerland.

In their
efforts they were assisted by signals intelligence. The German intelligence
agency Abwehr used the Enigma G cipher
machine for communication between main stations. This device was ‘solved’
by the Brits in late 1941 and
most traffic in the period 1942-45 was solved. Agents abroad relied on hand
ciphers, mainly substitution systems. Again most of these could be solved by Bletchley
Park during the war.

Through
signals intelligence the Brits were able to learn quite a lot about the German
spy networks and the Abwehr OOB.

Notice that
their operation was targeted, they didn’t intercept everything nor did they
have to treat their own population as a security risk. Mail was checked for
secret writing and microdots but in this case we are talking about a time of
war not peace like today.

All these
measures must have saved Britain! If it wasn’t for the ‘defenders of the realm’
then obviously they’d be speaking Deutsche and eating weisswurst today. Or maybe there is another explanation?

Let’s have a
look at the official history ‘British
Intelligence in the Second World War: Volume 4, Security and
Counter-Intelligence’as it should clear things up. In page 280
it says that wartime successes in counterintelligence depended on a combination
of factors, the most important being:

‘Great Britain being an island, it was possible in war-time to impose strict
control of entry which could not be easily evaded. The vulnerable back door via
the uncontrollable frontier between Northern Ireland and Eire was protected by
the Eire government's vigorous action
against the IRA and its determination that Eire should not be used as a base
for espionage or sabotage against the United Kingdom. Besides this geographical
advantage, in 1939 and throughout the war the United Kingdom had a homogeneous population in which patriotism
was still regarded as a cardinal virtue and which, apart from a numerically
insignificant minority, was deeply hostile to the Nazi regime. What the
Security Executive described as the 'different loyalty' of the leadership and
indoctrinated cadres of the CPGB helped Germany only incidentally, and only
until she attacked the Soviet Union in June,1941.’

So maybe
instead of intercepting our internet and phone traffic the Americans can follow
these simple guidelines:

1). Make sure
their borders are secure and work with Canada and Mexico to ensure this.

2). Have
faith in the patriotism of their countrymen to report suspicious activity and
deny help to evil spies, terrorists, hackers etc.

But doing
something so simple would mean the US intelligence budget would need to be much
smaller than 50 plus billion, wouldn’t it?

3 comments:

The significant difference is that whilst it's reasonable to expect one's own country's Security Service to monitor its citizens' communications, it is also reasonable to expect that Service to try to protect its citizens' communications from a 3rd party. We in the UK do NOT welcome our theoretical ally, the US, prying on everything we mere citizens do.

There are implications for our companies commercial trade negotiations with US counterparts.

Imagine the furore from US citizens & companies when/if they discover China has already had access to every item of their communications.

'it's reasonable to expect one's own country's Security Service to monitor its citizens' communications'

Ehm no it is not reasonable to do that without a clear goal in mind. If I have some kind of connection with terrorist groups, far right/far left movements etc etc then it probably means I’m a ‘person of interest’ for the ‘defenders of the realm’ and I’ll be monitored.

If I don’t belong in any of these categories why should the State have access to my confidential communications?